Law is a demanding profession. The students right after their entry to the law schools have to face the pressure and stress in order to reach good grades. The high competition with hardly any counselling or guidance from the faculty makes the student tense and depressed. The consequences can be quite severe. This presentation is an attempt to examine this serious challenge in all its dimensions.

1. DEPRESSION AMONG
LAW STUDENTS

2. PRESENTATION BY
MAJ GEN NILENDRA KUMAR
Director

3. DEPRESSION
meaning
•Feelings of severe
despondency and
dejection
•Depression is the constant
feeling of being numb. You
wake up in the morning
and just go back to bed
again.

4. “Depression is a ticking time bomb”
- Deepika Padukone
Indian Actress

5. SYMPTOMS
• Lack of interest
• Low energy
• Restlessness
• Decreased or increased appetite
• Oversleeping
• Insomnia
• Impaired memory
• Lowered self-confidence

6. CONSEQUENCES
•Emotional pain & suffering
•Risks of self destructive
behavior like rash driving ,
unsafe sex, drug abuse ,
excessive drinking
•Extreme manifestation may be
suicide

7. •Depression is different from
most medical conditions in
that sufferers rarely seek or
welcome support.

8. 2016 STUDY OF ASIAN JOURNAL OF
PSYCHIATRY
Depression among students is 52.3%
DIFFICULTY : Most of the students do not realize that they
are depressed. Even those who do , do not seek help.
They continue to suffer in silence due to fear of a stigma.

9. •Every hour one student
commits suicide in India ,
according to 2015 data , from
the National Crime Records
Bureau ( NCRB) .
•In 2015 the number of student
suicides stood at 8934
•The number of attempted
suicides , many unreported is
likely to be much higher

10. PROBLEMS IS MORE SERIOUS IN LAW
SCHOOLS
• 96% of law school students
experience extreme stress , only 70%
of medical students and 43% of
graduate students are extremely
stressed .
• A report by Dave Nee Foundation

11. PROBLEMS OF LAW
STUDENTS
•A syllabus difficult to comprehend an
navigate
•A high percentage of attendance to meet
•Uncertainty about placement
•Technical nature of law education with case
laws , moots , mock trials , internships , legal
clinics.

12. CAUSES OF
WORRY TO
YOUTH IN
INDIA
According to
Hindustan Times –
Mars Youth Survey -
2017

13. MAJOR
CAUES FOR
STRESS &
ANXIETY
Mortally afraid of examinations
especially competitive tests.
Anxious about getting a job .
Going wrong with crucial life
decisions.

14. • Half of the respondents felt anxious about their
employment prospects.

15. OTHER CAUSES
• Matters of the heart
• Maintaining good looks
• Keeping up with peers

16. LAW AS A ASPIRITATIONAL CAREER
• Youth from diverse socio economic background enter law schools
aspiring for a financially stable and ambitious career.
• They are exposed to risk of succumbing to high competition
environment , and thereby mental health issues.

17. CONFUSION
• What after law ?
• What career options to choose ?
• Daunting prospects to crack judiciary entrance exam

18. REASONS OR CAUSES
•According to one student :-
a) The Socratic method in which
professors ask public and often
embarrassing questions.
b) 90% of most law school grades depend
on a single exam that could determine
the entire grade.

19. Every law student learns within a few days of beginning of
school that good grades lead to membership on law review ,
to a prestigious clerkship and to interviews at highly regarded
law firms.
The practice followed by most law school ( even in India )
requires a professor to hand out a limited number of A’s , B’s
etc.
That means its impossible for everyone to do well . It is a
major reason that law school takes such a toll on its students.

20. • In India , more than one fourth suicides are related to
unemployment and found to be most common among
those between 21 and 30 in age.
• Young people find it difficult to cope with failures in
examinations and careers

21. HELP NOT EASY TO FIND
•Neither families nor other social
institutions are in a position to offer
requisite help or solace
•Shortage of about 80% in mental health
professions limits approach to
professional help

22. • The assessment system discourages collaboration at
best and fosters deceit at worst.
• Law students become distrustful and isolated. They
can loose their non- law student friends because they
study all the time.

23. STIGMA ASSOCIATED WITH MENTAL HEALTH
ISSUES
• Lack of access to basic information
• An unwillingness to accept mental health as a real
issue

24. • Kate Mayer Mangan in ‘The Blog Law School
Quadruples the chances of depression for tens of
thousands’
- Some Changes that Might Help , October 28 , 2014

25. TOP RANKING LAW SCHOOLS
• A report of a committee set up under
Justice K T Thomas in 2009 for review of
NLSIU Bangalore is reported to have
pointed out that the students have become
an easy prey to all sorts of evil practices of
smoking , drinking , drug abuse , sex etc.
resulting into terrible stress , dreadful
depression at least two cases of suicides
and a dozen of attempted suicides , and
even a murder.

26. •Prashant Chitalkar , second year law
school student of Deccan Education
Society Law College , Pune
committed suicide in end January ,
2010.

27. •NLU Jodhpur third year student Vikram
Nagech was found dead near the rail track
on 16th August 2017 . He was undergoing
treatment for depression.

28. •Amity Law School ,Delhi third
year law student Sushant Rohilla
barred from law exam ,
committed suicide on August 10 ,
2016.
•He was not allowed to take his
sixth semester exams due to low
attendance.

29. • Prior to taking the drastic step , Sushant was alleged to have
written a letter to the founder President of Amity , Dr Ashok
Chauhan, pleading for help and mercy. The student have
been told that he would have to repeat a year because of
short attendance. He implored Dr Chauhan that a year back
would destroy his life and it would be difficult for him to
mentally survive .

30. • Law student ‘Pallavi Vikramsey’ was found dead in the
railway tracks in Mumbai during early October 2017
.She was said to have been depressed for sometime.

31. •Arjun Bhardwaj , aged 24 jumped off from the 19th
floor hotel room during first week of April 2017 in
Mumbai. His father remarked that Arjun ,a student
was disturbed and depressed due to repeated failures
in exams.

32. • Almost all these incidents saw the law colleges
declining to admit firstly that the students concerned
had approached them and secondly that the college
was in any way connected to the mental issues.
However , the deaths were accepted to be unnatural.

33. • A group of students from Kerala Law Academy College
threatened to commit suicide during January. They
were protesting as their 48 hours hunger strike against
the college principal Lekshmi Nairs alleged
mismanagement and oppression. She was said to have
misbehaved with students especially Dalits and
abused them for arbitrarily favored the students she
favored.

34. An Illustration of depression
caused by system failure

35. MARKED ABSENT DOES WELL IN EXAMS
• Parshva Bhankharch , a final semester law student
from Government Law College Mumbai was initially
marked absent in the all four subjects .After making
several rounds of Mumbai University Examination
Department his papers were somehow traced and
evaluated .He finally emerged as one of the toppers in
the university.

36. AVOIDABLE
• There were many others
like him whose answer
sheets were not traceable.
Imagine the tension ,stress
and anxiety they went
through.

37. WHAT TO DO ?
FOR THE STUDENTS CONCERNED
Acceptance is the first step on the road to
recovery

38. LAW SCHOOLS NEED TO
• Provide counselling and psychological services.
• Advise students to seek help when they feel an urge
• Revisit attendance and other binding norms so as to make
them well defined .

39. HELP IN
PLACEMENTS
•Arrange expert and
extensive career
counselling for law
students regularly to
introduce them above
diverse range of
career options.

40. CONCLUSION
•Caring is a vital role. There
are many sources of help
and support for depressed
people and those who
care for them.

41. UNWIND VARIOUS WAYS TO COPE WITH
STRESS
1. Music
2. Watch inspiring movies
3. Talk to others
4. Sports & fitness
5. Partying with friends